Image: Giuseppe Milo [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr
Will funders build back better after coronavirus?
In December 2019 I predicted in these pages that the following 12 months would all be about the Research Excellence Framework, open access and due diligence, with a possible long-term comprehensive spending review.
Instead, we’ve had the explosion of a pandemic that has claimed all our attention, both in the world of research and outside it. So, yes, my predictions were wide of the mark last year and who’s to say something won’t happen to rubbish them in 2021. Let’s just hope it’s not Covid-21.
Funders will regroup
The rollout of the UK vaccination programme might be seen as a sign that research has done its job and can be put back on its previous track. But I don’t believe funding for the virus will now stop. Rather, it will broaden out towards tackling the wider effects of the pandemic, as well as future Sars viruses and other pandemic risks.
The coronavirus has been a brutal wake-up call to the dangers of complacency in a globalised world, but it has also shown what can be done with concerted effort. Funders will want to build on this, and work together to address significant intractable challenges. The Wellcome Trust’s new strategy, with its challenge-focused approach, represents a step in this direction.
Funding cuts
It’s ironic, then, that the one area of funding that will be scaled back is that dealing explicitly with global challenges. Official Development Assistance funding has been a central part of government funding since the £1.6 billion Global Challenges Research Fund launched in 2016.
But, following the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the lukewarm commitment to the global south in the R&D Roadmap, and the government dropping its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid, things are looking less stable for ODA funding. Jacqui Williams, UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) head of partnership programmes international, has said cuts are ‘inevitable’. The ODA-supported GCRF and Newton Fund reach the end of their current iterations in 2021. They, or something like them, should return, but it is unlikely they will be backed as generously.
We will see the road
In July 2020 the government sketched the outline of its R&D Roadmap. Last year’s short-term spending review put a little more meat on the bones, but in 2021 the road ahead will start to become clearer. We should finally see what the much-trumpeted ‘levelling-up’ agenda—aimed at addressing regional inequalities in the UK—will mean for research, and I would expect to see some initial calls around it. Whether funding for research is rolled up into the Shared Prosperity Fund being established to replace lost European Union funding for regions remains to be seen. Similarly, UK Arpa, the pet project of the prime minster’s former special adviser Dominic Cummings, should start to take shape, though chancellor Rishi Sunak’s promise of £50 million towards the eventual £800m earmarked for it is somewhat—how shall we say?—limited.
Spending reivew
Last year’s spending review was a stopgap measure while the Treasury sorted through debris left by the pandemic. With the furlough scheme and other measures being harvested from the non-existent magic money tree, Sunak’s wings have been severely clipped, and many research commentators are concerned about the government’s commitment to its goal to invest £22bn in R&D by 2024-25.
People will be put first
Much of the R&D Roadmap centred on attracting and retaining research talent in the UK and, less explicitly, countering the effects of Brexit on the attractiveness of the UK to researchers. It also contributed to a wider movement to address harassment in research workplaces. Expect a government strategy on this in the spring. Funders such as Wellcome and UKRI will change their guidelines and conditions in light of this.
Uncertainty
Having said that, there is gloom and uncertainty among researchers as redundancies and furloughs tear through universities through universities, particularly affecting early career researchers and contractors. This will be the year to get research plans back on track, but with potentially smaller teams and fewer research assistants to help.
REF will be put to bed
The deadline for submissions was put back four months, and is now 31 March 2021. It will be a manic three months between now and then as universities line up their ducks and hone their returns—and there’ll be dancing on the streets of every registry in the land on 1 April.
Phil Ward is director of the Eastern Arc consortium
This is an extract from an article in Research Professional’s Funding Insight service. To subscribe contact sales@researchresearch.com